INTRODUCTION XV11 



admirable Dictionnaire etymologique of Emile Egger, and 

 the copious Dictionnaire de la Langue Frangaise of Li tire* . 

 A large number of the names referrible to this group have 

 been adopted from the Latin of the Middle Ages, a jargon 

 that, with many peculiarities in each country, was at one 

 period used all over the "West of Europe, and is explained 

 in the great Lexicon Mediae Latinitatis of Ducange. These 

 names, obscure as they often were from the first, have 

 been so corrupted by ignorant copyists as in many cases to 

 defy all analysis, and render it necessary to refer to old 

 vocabularies, catalogues, and herbals to discover their 

 meaning. We might have expected many to have been 

 derived from the language of the ancient Britons ; but, 

 as far as I am aware, " Maple " is the only one ; and 

 there are very few indeed that have been adopted from 

 the modern Welsh, or from the Erse or Gaelic. 



As the term " Ind-European " will be frequently used, 

 and some may refer to the following vocabulary who have 

 not entered into philological speculations of this kind, it is 

 necessary to mention that the analysis of words, and the 

 comparison of their roots and grammatical structure, have 

 proved that all the principal languages of alphabetical 

 literature, exclusive of the Arabic and its allies, are inti- 

 mately connected with the ancient dialects of Persia and 

 Northern India. This has been considered by many 

 writers as a proof that all the nations which speak them 

 have descended from a common stock, and although this 

 inference as to the people may be incorrect, still, in a philo- 



